


The Promises He Makes

by olivemartini



Series: Infinity War Saga [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Character Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Relationship, Spoilers, idk how to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 07:13:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14636739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: He makes a lot of promises to Gamora.Peter tries his best to keep them.Sometimes he can't quite do it.





	The Promises He Makes

**Author's Note:**

> Infinity War spoilers below.
> 
> If you like this, check out the previous two in the series. The first one is about Peter's thoughts leading up to and during THAT scene.  
> (It's worth the read. I promise.)

1.

They're on the ship.

It's a new ship, one they got with the reward money for saving the galaxy, because it seems that even when you're a rogue group of criminals turned good guys, the government is obligated to give you some sort of compensation for damages when you protect the people better than the police could.  Peter likes it a lot better than his other one, because that one was old and was prone to leaking oil and miscellaneous fluids across the floors, which he and Rocket always had to figure out how to fix.  

(Mostly Rocket.)

This one, though, was glorious.  Peter tries to come up with another adjective and can't, because its the only thing that comes close: glorious.  Awesome sauce.  Amazeballs.  None of them quite managed to explain how when you sit down at the wheel it feels like the ship is just another limb, an extension to yourself, like its responding to the neurons firing in your brain rather than your hands on the dashboard.  It's got bullet proof windows, and air conditioning, and bunks that were actually made for real people, not some type of magic dwarf that Peter had never met but Drax swears exists.  

And there's a kick ass audio system, put in place just for him.  

He likes that part the best, because there's also a wide range of songs that he never even knew existed, which he listens to when he's in the mood, but mostly he just turns back to the old and overused playlist that his mom had gave him.  Peter isn't sure if those songs are the best (objectively, he's sure that he could find some that were newer, that he liked better, if not just as much) but these ones remind him of earth.  Of warm dirt and green things.  Of his mothers smile and the soft yellow of her hair, back before the chemo.  Of safety and stability and a house that was always filled to burst with the smell of baking bread and the scratch of the record player and voices, most of them singing, some of them not. 

Mostly not, by the end.

He doesn't like to think about the end, about space, about a life of crime, though, because somewhere in the back of his mind, even when he was trying to burn up the scar on his soul that his mother had left and worked to put his name on the map at whatever means necessary, he was always thinking about how his mother would not approve.  How even though she would tell him that he was meant for greatness ( _and it is a type of greatness, isn't it?  The greatest thief in the galaxy.  A name everyone knows.  A grave robber and a liar screwing his way through all the realms of the universe_ ), she certainly did not mean like this, not when she had told him the importance of being good, of being kind.

He's good, now.

A hero.

She has to be proud of that.

"What are you doing?"  Peter starts.  He was staring out the picture window, at the stars, and hadn't noticed when Gamora came up behind him.  It's not really his fault, either- the ship is a clash of muted blues and greens and reds, and at some parts, she just blends in.  

"Nothing."  The music is tilting through the air, spiraling, reaching a crescendo.  It's a sad song.  Peter tries to stay away from sad songs.  "Just..."  He waves a hand at the window, at the stars.  "Looking."

Gamora doesn't say anything, just steps up beside him, giving him enough time to wonder if stars are considered romantic up here, in space, where stars are all you have.  An endless expanse of supernovas and space dust.  Probably not.

"Thinking?"  She bumps her arm against hers.  There's still mistrust in the way she looks at him, a tension in the way she holds herself, but not as much as there was before.  Peter's been around her long enough to know that it wasn't anything personal.  I was just how life had taught her to survive.  "Don't hurt yourself."

"Not thinking.  Just listening."  He smiles at her, and holds out his hand to her.  Other girls on other planets in what seems like another life wouldn't have hesitated, wouldn't even have waited a second, but this is not that life, and Gamora is not like those girls.  Peter isn't like that man, anymore, either.  He thinks its a good thing.  "Dance with me."

"I don't know how."  Her hand flutters at her side like she wants to consider it.  "You know I don't know how."

"It isn't hard."  Peter comes a step closer to her, trying to make it easier, hoping that Rocket or Drax won't round the corner and ruin this.  He's trying so hard to make this happen.  He's never had something that he wanted this much, before.  "I'll teach you."

"You'll laugh." 

"I won't."

"You will."

"I promise."

She doesn't believe him, it's clear, but she does come closer, place her hand in his.  It's a swaying more of real dancing, but Peter takes what he can get, until she seems comfortable enough to actually lean against him.  He takes that as a cue that he can step it up a notch, but when he spins her around and dips her, she makes such an undignified squawk that he can't help it- he laughs.

"See?"  She looks annoyed and embarrassed, but she's giggling, too, like she knew how ridiculous she looked and didn't mind.  "I told you that you would laugh."

 

 

2.

They still haven't exactly talked about it.

It's been three weeks since they broke Peter's father down into a pile of dust, three weeks since the funeral for his surrogate father ( _who was never actually going to eat him, who knew_ ), and three and a half since mantis had put her hands on him and declared that he was feeling -what was it, exactly?- romantic, sexual love for the green lady.

Green lady as in Gamora, who had looked at him like she wanted to smash him underneath her high heeled boots just for daring to consider her an option, let alone actually fall in love with her.

So Peter tries really,  _really_ hard not to be.

It takes a lot of will power. He thinks that his best plan of action is just to extract himself from the situation, that a lessening of exposure would create a lessening of emotion.  It's a good theory, and the best he got, so Peter tries it, even though Rocket curses at him for being stupid and Mantis keeps apologizing for saying something she shouldn't ( _she is learning a few social cues, slowly, mostly hindered by Drax_ ) and Drax tells him he needs to stop being a spineless wimp.  Gamora, though, seems to get it- she had been disappointed at first, looking to him like she kept expecting him to materialize next to her and couldn't understand why he wasn't, her smile glowing and faltering and disappearing, and eventually, she stopped acting like she was expecting anything from him at all.

It was shitty, but it was necessary, to keep what they had.  He had always rolled his eyes when he heard guys talk about how they wouldn't make a move on a girl because it risked their friendship, but now he gets it, that fear.  He would have her in his life any way he could get her, even if that was at arms reach.

The plan means letting go of a lot of things.  There is no karaoke when they cook dinner together.  No dancing in front of the big picture window during a meteor shower.  No ducking down to kiss her on the top of the head and pretending that he hadn't, no having her come to lean against him.  There is nothing about the two of them that used to be easy, which is a blatant violation of the agreement that was made when she cornered him and mad him promise that Mantis' little announcement wasn't going to change anything between the two of them, but, oh well.  Big picture.

"God."  Gamora slammed her fists down on top of the table so hard that she upended the bowl of salad sitting in front of them, spewing lettuce and tomatoes all over Rocket's lap.  "Seriously, Peter?"

Peter stared.  He hadn't meant to do anything.  It wasn't even a conscious decision, really, just the fact that she had accidently backed up into him and he had reached out to steady her without thinking about it, and then his hand was on the small of her back, skin on skin, which made him remember that  _this was not allowed, not his to do, even a little bit_.  And if he had jumped back like it had electrified him, that wasn't on purpose either.  "Sorry."  Everyone was staring at him.  Rocket looked like he was going to attack him.  Drax was going to bust out laughing.  Mantis just looked confused.  And Gamora looked like she was going to burst into tears.  "Sorry, I didn't mean-,"

"You didn't mean to?"  She shrieked, which, yep, those were definitely tears.  Peter didn't think he had ever seen her cry before.  "Mean to do what, Peter?  Not want to touch me?  Never talk to me?  Cut me out of your life even though you promised that nothing would change?"

He didn't want to have this conversation.  Preferably not ever, but definitely not now, with everyone listening and their eyes staring at him and Gamora choking back sobs.  It made him want to jump out the door without a spacesuit.  

"I don't care."  Her hands are on him, now, clinging to him, bringing his face round to stare at her, desperate to make him understand.  "I told you that I didn't care."

"But I love you."  Peter had never said the words out loud.  If he remembers right, he never even agreed when Mantis said them, even though everyone in the room knew that it was true.  "I want you to care."

"That's not what I meant,"  Gamora says, and turns away from him, giving him enough time to scramble to think of something better to say, because this, right here, her walking away from him and out of his life forever, is exactly what he did not want.  But then she throws her hands out to Mantis, the first time Gamora ever came close to letting herself be touched ( _it's just freaky, Peter.  Don't pretend that you enjoy it_ ).  "Tell him, Mantis."  There's a moment where everyone seems to catch their breath as Mantis looks up at Gamora, trying to make her understand.  "Make him understand."

Peter's seem Mantis work often enough that it is no longer surprising, the way her antenna light and her eyes close and she seems to drift along in someone else's consciousness, but it was different when it was one of them.  When it was Gamora.

"She feels love."  The dreamy quality from Mantis voice was gone, almost like she was bored.  "Love for you."

He wants to argue.  He had been telling himself no for so long that he did not know what to do with himself now that he has finally heard yes.

"Romantic love?"  He says instead, choking out the words, partly because he needs clarification and partly because he thought it would break the tension, quoting how Mantis had phrased her declaration of his undying devotion.

Gamora nods her head, through her tears, and even though Peter can tell that she is angry at him, he can also tell that she is happy. Happy because of him.

"For me?"  He tries to crack a smile.  "Or for the entire world, in general?"

She doesn't answer that one, but then again, she didn't really need to.  Mantis always tells the truth.

( _Which, incidentally, is something she needs to stop doing.  They were a band of criminals, after all.  Heroes and criminals and family, all wrapped into one falling apart spaceship._ )

 

 

 3.

If there's one thing that he's learned, it's that outside of this little ship, people are pretty shitty and the bad guys never stop coming.

It's lucky for them, in a way, because for every bad guy and monster out in the galaxy, there's a paycheck in the making.  In theory, that would work, because then the world can operate on the assumption that it's an even match, balanced scales.  A hero for every villain in the endless story of time.

But its not how it works.

Sometimes, the back up the heroes were counting on do not arrive in time.  Sometimes, there is an overwhelming army of mutant (aliens? robots? dragons?)  _things,_ with guns that fire blasts of white hot light who seem intent on taking over a planet of innocent farmers and have no end in sight.  Sometimes, there is only so much that two ( _or three, maybe, depending on how Drax was feeling_ ), an empath, a raccoon, and a tree can do.

"Don't do something stupid."  Gamora lands in front of him in a crouch.  She had her sword out in front of her, and even as he turned to talk to her, she drives it through the body of an impending enemy, severing the head at the shoulders.  It's a clean blow, and it makes blood spray over both of him.

"Why would I actively do something stupid?"  He goes for sarcasm, because they are alone on this planet and he is worried even if he won't admit it, and for the first time, he thinks that they are going to lose.  

(Which isn't so bad.  They 're freelance security guards.  No one expects them to keep trying when everyone knows that they would die.  Peter just wished that their loss would come when they were guarding some priceless artifact for some old rich guy, not protecting a group of peasant farmers from mass genocide.)

"I mean don't do anything stupidly brave, alright?"  There's an intensity to her voice and gaze that makes him want to kiss her, makes her think it might be worth it to die on this battlefield just so she could see him go out in a blaze of glory, die knowing that someone loves him like that, where they burn with it.  "I know you.  And I know you want to be a hero." It's like a bubble has encased them, because right now, this moment, was just the two of them.  "Promise me, Peter."

"I hear you."  He does not promise, but she still takes it as an agreement.  Peter is not quite ready to let her go, yet.  "But regular brand heroics, that's okay, right?"  She glares at him, and Peter smiles.  "Just checking the boundaries."

He plans to stick with that, because he knows, even as much as it rips him apart to admit it, that dying here will not save these people.  It will give them seconds, moments, in exchange for his lifetime, and he does not think it is worth it, but when Rocket screams at them to fall back, to get to the ship, that they have done all they can, Peter still stays to fight.

Part of him thinks that he's actually going to be able to do it.  That all it would take is a lot of fighting, one at a time, where eventually, against all odds, he would reign victorious and the people would hail them as their supreme overlord who they feed mac and cheese all day, and Gamora would be his queen.  Happy ever after.

Only that doesn't happen.  What does happen is that he takes a spear through the leg and has to be saved by Gamora, who looks at him like he is something disgusting that her pet dog tracked into the house.

( _Do they have dogs in space?  Maybe not.  He's never seen one.  Gamora seems more like a cat person, anyways._ )

"I told you."  She throws his jacket down beside him and then his guns, and they both don't stare out the window, so they do not see the people who die when they fly away, who watch the supposed guardians of the galaxy to be massacred.  "Don't try to be a hero."  She curls up beside him, let's him lean on her, because between the two of them, she is the one who is used to walking away from lost causes.  Who knows when to cut their losses.   "Heroes never get to be happy."

 

 

4.

"You can't do that again."  

It's later.  Gamora is the one talking, and he is sleeping, or should have been.  Mantis dosed out the medication, and Peter did not have it in him to admit that he used to have a problem with it, that he took it to sleep and relax and be happy and all other kinds of reasons, so he's built up a tolerance.  Peter had planned to sneak out to the kitchen and take some more once everyone had gone to bed, but then Gamora had walked to the doorway of his quarters and started talking, and Peter couldn't bring himself to let her know that he was hearing all of it.

"I know you want to help them.  And I know you think that we should never lose.  That the good guys always get to win."  She's crying.  Or trying not to.  He can't turn his head to look at her, but he can hear part of it- the quiver in her breathing, the lengthy pause between sentences, how her words were coming out in a rush.  "But that's not how the world works.  Bad guys do bad things and get away with it, because they're stronger, sometimes.  And good people get hurt, because they aren't willing to do what it takes."

"But I am."  She was.  Peter had known she was, from the very first day he met her.  Everything about her screamed that she was a survivor.  "And nothing's going to hurt you.  I'll burn down every planet and every solar system and the whole entire galaxy before I let them take you away from me."

She crosses the room, kneels down at the side of the bed, and Peter freezes.  He tries not to even breath.

"I can't protect you from yourself.  I know you want to save people.  I know you didn't want to leave, today."  He hadn't.  That image is going to be burned into his mind forever, the screams and the dirt turned mud from all the blood, the kids that they plowed over just like they did the adults, bodies splayed at odd angles.  Peter would never get used to death like that.  "You're never going to want to.  I can't stop you from being a hero.  I'm just asking- stop long enough to remember what you're giving up, alright?  Stop to remember me."

He can feel the bed creak when she stands up and leans over to tug up the covers.  Gamora must have known he wasn't sleeping, somehow.  "Stay with me."  He could feel the heat pouring off of her, wanted to grab her by the waist and pull her close.  "Promise me, Peter."

"I promise,"  He says, but its later, long after she left, whispered to the darkness.

( _Does it really count, if no one was there to hear it?_ )

 

 

+1

Here's a scenario: what to do when your girlfriend makes you promise to kill her in order to stop her genocidal father from destroying the universe.

You say no.  

Obviously.

That's what Peter had done, without even thinking about it, without even weighing the cost- one person to save countless others wasn't a bad trade.  If it was someone else, anyone else, even himself, he wouldn't hesitate.  But this was Gamora.

 _I've already lost so much,_ is what he is thinking, about his mother and the beam of light that lifted him into the sky, a father that was not a father and a criminal who wasn't a criminal, who saved him in the end, all the years wasted on trying to belong.   _Do not put more blood on my hands,_ he adds, because there is, the people he had left and the people he had hurt and the ones he could not save.   _We'll win this, together, just like always,_ a lie, a plea wrenched from him out of pure desperation.   _But I love you too much to hurt you,_ like that was enough, like it would matter, like love could save any of them now.

"Tell me what it is."  For one fleeting moment, he wishes that she was the type of woman who would walk away from this.  That he could gather Rocket and Groot and Drax and Matnis back into this spaceship, fly them to the farthest reach of the galxy where maybe, on a hope or a prayer or a wish or whim, the death wave wouldn't reach them.  And if it did, they could go out happy- with music and dancing and feasts and flying at a faster speed than the ships were meant for.  Not like this.  Not with so much pain.  "Let me help you."

"But then you would know, too,"  Gamora says, and its how Peter knows that there is no way they are turning back.  That she would not stop until Thanos was in his grave.  Until the world was safe from the monster she helped to create.  "And he would come after you."

That moment, back then, when he was forced to make a choice, he knew that he wasn't made to be a hero.  Heroes are made from steel and iron and with gunmetal bones, meant for the fight and the blood and the pain.  For sacrifice.  For endurance.  That was all Gamora was- sharp angles trying to be soft, a heart that burns with a lioness kind of love where she fights to protect her pride, callous enough to walk away and strong enough to throw herself back into the flames, if she thought that there was a reason to keep fighting.  She would lay her life down for the cause, if that was what it cost.

Not Peter.  Peter didn't want that.  He had wanted his life to be like a story, so he created a lie: a lie where he was the best theif in the goddamn galaxy, where everyone in the cosmos knew his name.  He made himself a title and pretended that the girls he kissed actually cared what happened to him the next day, where he haggled with dealers and outran the police and fought with gunmen, like staying in his childhood dreams forever was going to give him glory.  But then he grew up and got a new dream, where people did know his name but it because he was a hero, a hero turned legend turned god, where the memories the world held of him would make him immortal.  Peter liked that better, and he liked the fact that he wasn't alone, too- that he had Rocket to fight with and Drax to laugh at and Groot to care for, and Gamora, always Gamora, right by his side where she belonged even as the world burned down around him.

It's still that story, really.  The only thing wrong was that Peter always assumed that he would get a happy ending.  

"Okay."  He said it because he knows she is right.  He said it because his mother had taught him to be good and Peter really wanted to leave this life like a hero.  He said it because he was thinking about if they failed, if she was taken and Thanos tried to get what he wanted, of what he would be willing to do to her, the things she would put up with before Thanos got her to waver.  Mostly, though, he says it because he is still kidding himself, because he is still believing in that story, where they are heroes, where they are warriors, where they are the goddamn guardians of the galaxy and that means they win.  He says it because he has not yet considered the possibility that they are going to lose.  "I promise."

 

 

+2

"I told you to go right."  He says, because Thanos has his hands on the only thing that Peter really has left to lose, because his heart is breaking, because he wants to say  _I'm sorry_ and  _I love you_ and  _this is not the end, this is not where our story can stop, I refuse to believe we have reached the final chapter_ and also  _I'm sorry, I can't do this, I know you asked me and its for the greater good and I promised, but Jesus, Gamora, everyone has a breaking point and this one is mine, this is the one thing I cannot do for you, please do not ask it of me._ "It would have been fine if you had just gone to the right."

"Do it, Peter."  She is not crying, but she is coming close, and Peter wants to pull the trigger just to stop that from happening.  He knows how much she hates to cry in front of anyone ( _everyone but you,_ she had told him, one night where he wiped away her tears) and he did not want to have Thanos see it.  He had no right to see it.  "Do it now."

He adjusted his grip on the gun, tries to make himself pull the trigger.  Thanos is laughing at him and Gamora is pleading and Peter is just repeating how she should have gone right because he cannot  _think,_ because this cannot be the end, that there was some option they could not see or a plan they didn't think of, a wild card they had left to play.  Only there was nothing.

_This is the fate of the world.  Of the galaxy.  This is everything that ever was or ever will be, resting on the woman you love and your willingness to end her._

_This thing, what you are about to do, it's mercy.  He's won, it's gone and over with, and you call her strong but she cannot be strong forever, this man who calls himself a god will break her, do you think she will know how to live -will want to live- once she knows what it means to crumble at someone else's feet?_

_Heroes are ruthless.  Heroes make the tough call.  For once in your worthless life, Peter, be a hero._

_Just this one last time, keep your promise._

They're all good arguments.

He pulls the trigger, and feels himself die when he does it, like his rib cage was spread out like angel wings and his heart ripped out of his chest.   Only there is no firing of a gun and no death.

There are bubbles.  There is reality, reshaping itself around them a million times over, all their actions reformed and redone in the space of a second, the only time fighting has ever been futile.

It's only then that Peter knows what losing feels like.

 

+3

He promised to kill Gamora in order to save the universe, if it came to that.  

And he tried.

But he failed at that, too, so Thanos took her and he fought to get her back and it didn't matter, nothing fucking mattered, because he threw her off a cliff in exchange for a stone and the chance to conquer and had the audacity to mourn, to feel a loss that should only belong to Peter.

He's not sure which one of them he hates the most.

 

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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